Friday, June 08, 2007

Man, I'm Beat! (Or...A Post Of Miscellania)

Wow...between ILUG, Lotus Developer2007, jet lag, and basic lack of sleep for the past two weeks, I am done for. On top of all that, my oldest turns 13 today, so I am now officially the parent of a teenager. THAT is a scary thought! Plus, that means I am getting old!!! :-(

What follows is just a bunch of random thoughts from the past few days...

Thanks to all of the people who attended my sessions at the View conference. I really enjoyed talking with all of you and hope you got some useful content out of it. I think the most fun was my Advanced Interface Techniques presentation on Monday afternoon. It must have been pretty successful, since I got several people to stay around an additional 10 minutes after the end, showing them some stuff I didn't have time for. The kicker was that it was 5:30 and there was FREE BEER available and they still stayed. Way cool! :-D

The conference as a whole was amazing. So many talented speakers and attendees that really seemed happy to be there. The WIS staff does a super job of making things run smoothly. It's always a pleasure to see them all. The one weird thing about the conference...how it just ends. They don't have a closing session of any kind. You just get out of your last class and that's it. I think a short closing session just to wrap things up might be nice. Hanging out after hours is always fun too. I hope to see you all again next year!

For those of you looking for some of the downloads I promised, please give me a couple of days and they will be available. I plan on adding the non-Domino based javascript and css examples here. Most of the other stuff I showed is in the take-home database. For ease of use, I combined the JavaScript and CSS examples into one database. Also, I ran out of time in the Advanced UI session and didn't get to show the "Super Burrito Configurator". There's some cool ideas there, so check it out!

I got delayed flying from Cleveland to Boston, so I had time to write part 1 of my "intro to usability testing" article. Look for that as soon as I get a chance to type it up (yes...I actually used the ancient art of writing on paper...really nice to do that sometimes, especially in a nice crisp Moleskine with a good pen).

Some very interesting items came to light in the last few weeks that I haven't had a chance to comment on but are certainly worth reviewing from a collaboration perspective, most notably Microsoft Surface and Google Gears. Surface looks amazing...I hope to get some time to jot down my thoughts on this innovative interface. Speaking of "jotting", I love the Jott service. Being able to use my cell phone while driving (with headset, of course)to deliver notes to myself via e-mail has been invaluable. More on that later as well.

I am really drooling over the iPhone and its UI but I am still unsure of a device without physical buttons of any kind. Unless they've got something else up their sleeves, the iPhone is certainly a two hand device, which in some ways reduces its utility. Perhaps this could be rectified with bluetooth-based voice controls or something similar.

Best thing about coming home (besides seeing my family, of course): The new Dream Theater album (see, I'm showing my age by using that term) was waiting for me. The special edition packaging looks sweet and I can't wait to hear the 5.1 version down in my home theater!

Well..I guess that's all the ramblings for today. Almost time to kick off the weekend. Have a great one!

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Chris, I attended three of your presentations at the View conference and enjoyed them all. I have shared the major points with my coworkers who are also excited about using your concepts and techniques in our application and want to thank you for making them available.